THE MARRIAGE 
EAST ^^f^k^^^^ 

B^6 MARIE TUDOR GARLAND 



UBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDDlB^aaBTT 




Class ES_^b5J3_- 
Book,-M4 g5 A4e) 

COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE 
MARRIAGE FEAST 



BY 
1U MARIE TUDOR GARLAND 

AUTHOR OF "the POTTER's CLAY," "tHE WINGED 
SPIRIT," "HINDU MIND TRAINING," ETC. 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Zbe Iknicfterbocfter press 
1920 



t^%^' 






Copyright, 1920 

BY 

MARIE TUDOR GARLAND 



FEB -7 1921 




Printed in the United States of America 



§)C!.A608269 



After man had conceived many gods 

In his own image. 

The Woman said: 

*' The time has come 

For me to conceive a god. " 

And the woman conceived, 

And gave birth to herself. 



CONTENTS 



MARRIAGE 



The Marriage Feast 

Dawn 

Sanctuary 

The Storm 

Your Touch 

For Loving you 

Love 

Rest, my Sweet 

Full Moon 

The Sun's Wooing 

You Ask me 

Married . 

Take me . 

Wounds 

God . 

I Have Understood 



PAGE 

3 
6 



10 

II 

12 

13 

14 
15 
i6 

i8 

19 
21 

22 
23 



vi CONTENTS 






PAGE 


The Eagle ....... 24 


Nothing to Say 






. 25 


Why Lose our Way 






26 


Chance .... 






. 27 


We Two .... 






. 28 


The Empty Cup 






. 29 


Wounded ..... 






. 30 


Lost 






31 


Take my Dreams . 






32 


Man 






• 33 


Time .... 






• 34 


What Mighty Wooing 






. 35 


Your Loving and my Despair 






. 36 


In that Ultimate Hour . 






. 37 



II 



THE MOTHER 



Woman 


. 41 


I AM A Woman . , . . 


. 42 


Birth . . . . . 


. 44 


Blue . . . . . 


• 45 


My Boy 


. 46 


My Girl 


. 47 


My Bliss .... 


. 48 



CONTENTS vii 




PAGE 


Her Plaid .... 


49 


To MY Son .... 


50 


Sunburn ..... 


. 51 


To A Son Going to War 


. 52 


Seek Within .... 


. 53 


To my Sons .... 


. 54 


My Child is Dead . 


. 55 


War 


. 56 


It is not True . 


. 57 


This Mother-Love . 


. 58 


Son's Strength . 


. 59 


Son's Love 


. 60 


The Swan .... 


. 61 


The Shadow 


. 62 


The Tree 


. . . . 63 


The Future 


. . . . 65 



Way? 

Cat Briars 
When I Go 
After Pain 



III 

THE WOMAN 



69 
70 
71 
75 



VIU 



CONTENTS 



This Rainbow . 

When the Storm Breaks 

My Will . 

Sea Lace . 

The Spider 

The Veil . 

January Thaw, Cape Cod 

Hands 

Sleep 

My Heart Fares South 

When I Uncaptained Go 

When I am Dead 

Memory . 

Lovers 

The Poet . 

The Wind 

Memories . 

Deserted 

Restless . 

My Dear . . 

The Golden Gods 

Autumn 

Youth 

Age . 

Mirage 



PAGE 

76 
77 
78 
79 
80 
8i 

82 

84 

85 
86 

87 



91 
93 
94 
95 
97 
98 
99 
100 

lOI 

104 
105 
106 



CONTENTS 






ix 


IV 


OTHER WOMEN 


PAGE 


Faces iii 


What is the Sea? 


. 113 


The Loom 












• 114 


To A Butterfly 












. 116 


His Mother 












117 


Other Tears 












118 


Other Joy 












119 


Life 












120 


The Great Wrong 












121 


A Farmer's Wife 












122 


Two Faces 












123 


The Madonna . 












124 


Mary 












125 


The Stranger . 












126 


The Pathway . 












. 128 


The Harlot's Cup 












129 


Slowly a Woman Climbs 










130 


Grieve if you Must 










131 


Her Love 










134 


Her Joy .... 










135 


The Factory Wall . 










136 


The Thief 












138 



X CONTENTS 

PAGE 

One Woman ....... 139 



Your Feet 



A Stranger 



Who Lightly Come 



140 



She Came ....... 141 



142 



The Mill 143 



144 



A Song for Women ...... 146 



A UTHOR'S NOTE. — A few of the poems in this volume 
have appeared, in the same or a different form, in two pre- 
vious volumes. The Potter's Clay and The Winged Spirit. 

M. T. G. 



Part I 
MARRIAGE 



THE MARRIAGE FEAST 

I CRY 

What honour bring you 

Who stand across the board 

With turbulent disquietude of eyes? 

What honour bear you 

To animate this impending purple feast r 

Nay, come not to this board 

To mourn your dead. 

Come not here with spent unburied dream, 

Nor with old wrong clinging with lethal breath 

To unfulfilled song. 

Nay, if memory haunting cloud the sun, 

If unseen thongs curb your unrest. 

If arms are burdened, hands unfree, oppressed. 

Turn from this board and go, 

Go lie with death. 

For here shall be held 
Highest festival. 

Here only the free shall give joyously 
To life that life may be. 
3 



THE MARRIAGE FEAST 

You who come in quest of life 

Must come a pregnant guest. 

You who would penetrate the veil of life 

Must come no beggar, but warm 

With harvest of garnered fruit, 

Heavy with vintage. 

So shall the torment of your hunger 

Be appeased. 

So shall you bring all beauty here 

To couch and lie with me; 

So shall you mirrored see 

Star-deep 

All beauty in my eyes; 

So shall you reach the crested summit of my 

breast 
Where speech is lost 
And memory fades to dream . . . 

I come no barren comer 
To this feast. 

I come with hoarded opulence 
Of fruity wine, 

I come with grape new-gathered 
From the vine, 
I come resplendent 
With mighty breasts 
To bourgeon melody as yet unborn. 
I come with cool and gleaming thighs 
4 



THE MARRIAGE FEAST 

Crowned with power to cradle 

Your songs and your sighs. 

I come with limbs 

Whose strength shall bend and bow 

To eagle-speed your arrow. 

I come with arms 

That shall enfold and hold you, 

Arms that shall thrust you far and free. 

With hands that shall turn 

Your hunger and your drouth, 

That shall be as lips and mouth. 

Passion-quelling in the end. 

I come with hair that shall shield 

And shelter you by day, 

And in the night shall be as flame. 

I come with lips 

That shall infuse your storm-pressed heart 

With lightnings for your thunder. 

I come with eyes where you shall find 

Sunny fields for leaping, and for play. 

And shade for sleeping. 

Eyes where you shall find 

The gleam of a flying soul 

That for all your piracy 

You cannot hold. 



DAWN 

All through the years I heard your voice, 
And I thought that I should find you 
Just beyond the farther hill; 

Yet ever you eluded, 

Seeking the deeper vales. 

The shades grew darker. 

And I lost the way. 

Then when I thought 

The least to find you, 

You were the dawning day. 



SANCTUARY 

In a night of storm 

I was carried on a sea of pain. 

Again and yet again it flung me back 

Bleeding upon the rocks. 

But my spirit would not yield, 

And wore a smile upon its lips. 

Now at the dawn 

I lie within the sanctuary of your arms. 

My spirit weeps at last; 

It cannot bear the pang of living joy. 



THE STORM 

Beloved, in the beauty of your coming 

To my chamber, 

Was the sense of a glad day 

Newly washed in the gold 

Of the sun's going; 

There was the hush of waiting 

Known at the birth of night. 

As countless silent phantoms creep 

Along the earth, holding in their hands 

The shadows they are bringing 

To veil the eyes of sleep. 

There was the music 

Of the many chirping things 

That sing the silence of the night, 

And the haunting scent of flowers 

In some lost and distant dream; 

The hovering sense of many wings 

Brushing the stillness of the heart 

With feathered silence — 

Wings that flutter and are gone; 

And there was the beauty of the moon, 

Which thrust the clouds aside 



THE STORM 

That for a moment she might see 
The sleeping earth. 
Then, as the wings of night 
Enfold the day, 
So did your tender arms 
Enfold and hold me in the night ; 
And when the storm crept up the valley, 
Scattering the leaves. 
And the trees caught the wind 
And made it sing, 
And a few pattering drops 
Fell from the sheltering eaves, 
You did love me. 
And then the titan tempest rose 
And swept the hills 
And drove us on its wings to the sea. 
And the trees sobbed and moaned 
Beneath the gale, 
While trees and branches 
Ready for the reaping 
Crashed and fell. 
And the driven rain splashed 
Against the window panes 
And came in rivers from the eaves. 
Then the sea rose from its bed 
And hurled and lashed 
The wind-swept, barren shore. 
And in the storm were scattered, far and wide, 
The seeds another storm shall reap. 
9 



YOUR TOUCH 

Even as in spring, when the ice breaks, 

And the river is in flood, 

Singing over rocks. 

Surging over moss-strewn cUfls 

To drop from there in darkHng pools, 

Where diamonds dance and sparkle in the sun, 

And pearls, one by one 

Go quivering to and fro. 

Even such is the music that I know 

In your touch. 



FOR LOVING YOU 

What is it weighs me down to-day, 
With a weight that is sweet, 
Like the burden gladly borne 
For some beloved? 

Is it the shadow of your nearness, 
The sense of you too near to me, 
Which, though it weighs me down, 
Yet brings with it some comfort ? 

Or is it just the weight of all my lives 

I feel oppressing. 

In years which I would lift 

And throw aside. 

To live again that other life 

Where I so gladly died 

For loving you. 



LOVE 

Love which holds back 

Something in reserve 

Will never know 

The joy of giving, 

The joy of constant death. 



REST, MY SWEET 

Rest with your arm outstretched, my sweet. 

That I may rest there too. 

And all the hours that you sleep, 

I shall be loving you. 

And while we rest and sleep, my dear, 

God will hold us two. 



13 



FULL MOON 

The moon is full, 

Sea flooding, 

Sap flowing. 
The moon is full, 

My thoughts winging. 

My man wooing. 
The moon is full. 



14 



THE SUN'S WOOING 

There is no dalliance here. 

Here is a titan love that seeks a myriad breasts 

for wooing, 
That pierces the Earth with a million ardent 

spears : 
Here every ray that enters leaves a fertile womb. 



15 



YOU ASK ME 

You ask me if I love you, 
And I answer that I do. 

You ask me why I love you, 
And I find it hard to say. 
I come to you. 
You answer every need. 
Your love is all the reason 
That my love can give 
For loving you. 

Love you always? 

That I cannot say. 
It rests with you ; 
You lead me now, 
You point the way 
And I gladly follow 
While I may. 
Love is an awakening. 
Another birth, 
A closer homing 
To our mother earth, 
l6 



YOU ASK ME 

I shall love you always, 

Yet shall ever seek and follow 

The brighter light, 

The fuller love. 

The larger truth absorbs the lesser, 

Else why my love for you ? 



17 



MARRIED 

You who have given me your name, 

And with your laws have made me wife, 

To share your failures or your fame, 
What proof has made me yours for life ? 

In spite of all the laws you've made 

I'm free. I am no part of you. 
And wait, the last word is not said: 

You're mine, for I'm myself and you. 

All through my veins there flows your blood : 

In you there is no part of me. 
By force of this my motherhood 

Through me you live eternally. 



i8 



TAKE ME 

I ONLY ask that you will 

Take me, 

That you make me serve 

Your will, 

Use me well or use me ill, 

I'll not care 

If you but have your will. 

I only ask that you will 

Take me 

Till you have had your fill. 

Use me well or use me ill, 

I'll not care. 

Try to kill me 

If you will. 

I know the woman 

Here in me 

Will tame the man in you, 

And that your tenderness 

Will be 

As tender as my own. 

And when your heart 

Is stilled 

19 



TAKE ME 

And you have had 
Your fill, 

You will know your love 
Was but to serve 
My will ! 



WOUNDS 

Even as the oyster, from the grain 

Of sand that tortured, 

Upbuilt the pearl, 

I captured from the world 

All the beauty that I found 

And wound it round my pain, 

And with it crowned my love. 

When he tore away 
The wonder I had brought 
He could not understand 
The blood upon his hand. 



GOD 

The love 

I loved you with 

Is God. 



I HAVE UNDERSTOOD 

I MAY not love you 

As another would, 

For I have lived too fully, 

I have understood. 

I may not love you 

As another would, 

For in the heart that I should bring 

You'd feel the pulse of every woman 

Who has loved 

And suffered for her love. 

I have lived in each. 

Feeling her pain was mine. 

I am all these women. 

So I may not love you 

As another would. 



23 



THE EAGLE 

You Eagle that would be alone 

And cry your solitude 

To the day and to the night, 

And gaze upon the stars 

That bred you, 

Dreaming to be aloof, 

To be ever one and alone, 

Know you may never, now . . 

For on a sunlit mountain top 

You found a mate. 

Though now you would forget 

And still would be alone, 

Your mate has built a nest. 



24 



NOTHING TO SAY 

Nothing to say? 
With an aching heart, and a fevered brain, 

Nothing to say ? 
With a heart that bleeds of an endless pain. 

Nothing to say? 
With a world of suffering yet to face, 
With a world of love unsung, 

Nothing to say? 

O God, nothing to say. 



25 



WHY LOSE OUR WAY 

Nay, Love, why lose our way in words. 

Why try to understand the things of earth 

Save through the spirit ? 

Love like ours has given birth 

To countless winged thoughts 

That draw us each to each. 

Nay, Love, what matters speech 

With love like this between? 

What matters anything to us 

Who have this dream? 



26 



CHANCE 

For months I looked for a sign : 
Some word to tell your mood. 
And now 

By some unknown chance, 
I know. 



27 



WE TWO 

This loving may not be unloved, 

We are together now; 

We two in the hand of God. 

We have been alone, 

Each in a world 

That knows no pity. 

This loving may not be unloved. 



28 



THE EMPTY CUP 

Why does my love not see 

The empty cup 

I am holding up 

For him to fill? 

Why does he drink of mine 

And find good wine 

To meet his will, 

And still not see 

The empty cup 

I am holding up 

For him to fill? 



29 



WOUNDED 

I AM wounded by an unknown thing 

That is not I, 

Brooding with alien wing 

Here where I lie. 



30 



LOST 

Heap flowers on my head. 
Now that you have lost me 
Crown me with stone, 
For this long-loved beauty 
Sleeps with the dead. 

Heap flowers on my head. 
Now that you have lost me 
Dream of the lip you kissed, 
Dream of the lost beauty 
Of the soul you missed. 

Heap flowers on my head, 
Now that I am gone. 
Now that you have lost me 
Crown me with stone. 



31 



O TAKE MY DREAMS 

O TAKE my dreams, 

And use them — 

You who have no dreams — 

Take and crush them, 

Crush and bruise them. 

Like the vined fruit; 

Make of them your wine. 

So shall you drink 

And dream, 

So shall my dreams be fused, 

So shall the purple of my life 

Bear fruit. 

O take my dreams ! 



32 



MAN 

Man, loving beauty, woos 
To overtake and seize; 
Then, for a moment's ease, 
Slays the thing he pursues. 



33 



TIME 

Time, Man has found some fallen feathers from 

your wings. 
He has named this one an hour, that one a day, 

others years. 
Collecting them and counting them he sits, 
Towering above them at his play. 
So when I catch the flash of sunlight on your 

wings. 
And count the years that hours hold 
And days that are centuries old 
With nothing after, 
I hear beyond the walls of space 
Your pinioned laughter. 



34 



WHAT MIGHTY WOOING 

What mighty wooing has been here 
That brought from out the spheres 
The earth submissive to the sun! 
What titan pulse 
Has thrilled in primal force 
Before the triumph won! 

When the earth was young 
And had but winds for play, 
She gave birth to mountains, 
And tore from her living heart 
Great rivers that the sea might be, 
And her imperial pulse 
Was the beating of eons' wings 
That thundered past her 
In her dreams. 

And now the creeping pulse of time 
Is no deeper than our days and nights, 
And men forget to dream. 



35 



YOUR LOVING AND MY DESPAIR 

I MAY have died, my dear, for all your care; 
Died between your loving and my despair. 

You brought your disillusioned heart to rest 
Between the lordly summits of my breast, 

And so, warmed and at ease, your loving slept, 
Giving no word, no sign, nor once upleapt 

In dream of pilgrimage to reach the snows 
That crown the path the storm-pressed eagle 
knows. 

I may have died, my dear, for all your care, 
Died between your loving and my despair. 



36 



IN THAT ULTIMATE HOUR 

In that ultimate hour, Sweet, 

When past and future 

Meet in you and me, 

My spirit reaches out to you 

With arms that are outworn, 

With unseeing eyes, 

With voice long mute. 

With lips that ages past 

Have done with kissing. 

Then, in that ultimate hour, Sweet, 

I know why God is silent. 

Why God neither sees nor speaks. 

Why those unenfolding arms 

Have left me free. 



37 



Part II 
THE MOTHER 



39 



WOMAN 

My mother, Earth, 

Is plowed 

And harrowed 

For the sowing. 

Like my mother. Earth, 

I bear the blossoms, 

I do the growing, 

I bear the fruit, 

The seed 

For sowing. 



41 



I AM A WOMAN 

I AM a woman 

And have lived a woman's way 

With life. 

Now am I big with new life 

Soon to have birth. 

Take me in your arms 

And hold me there, 

For the treasure 

That I bear 

Is rare 

And of great worth. 

I have travelled 
Over land and sea, 
Everywhere life loving me. 
There is no beauty 
Of the sky 
Or earth 

That does not live in me. 
Life was prodigal in loving, 
Life gave his all to me. 
There is no thought 
42 



I AM A WOMAN 

That has come to life 

But life has given me. 

There is no further knowledge 

Of the soul 

Than life has whispered me. 

Life tells me 

There is no other god 

Than the god that lives in me; 

I am burdened with the seeds 

Of my lover's sowing. 

I know my time has come, 

So take me in your arms 

And hold me there, 

For the treasure 

That I bear 

Is rare 

And worth your knowing. 



43 



BIRTH 

As death, with grim 

Uncertain features hid 

In formless night, 

SHps in to draw unto himself 

The spent and dying year, behold 

The light, which from his invisible 

Mantle now shines 

Upon the new-born year, 

Who comes with head erect and shining limbs. 



44 



BLUE 

To-day the sky 

Is a glorious blue; 

I find blue asters too. 

O sky, where have you too 

Found this magic blue? 

You will not tell? 

Then shall I ask my little girl 

And she will say, 

Whose eyes to-day are blue 

Where yesterday was gray. 



45 



MY BOY 

His eyes are wild and close to nature, 
Understanding things unknown, 
Things which are in us and beyond us, 
All of beauty. 

His features are perfect, 
Like a young god's; 
But it is the look 
That startles you 
And holds you. 



46 



MY GIRL 

Has your slim white body, child, 

Come a shafted arrow from the sun ? 

For this brightness of you 

Dazzles in the whiteness 

Of the beauty you have won. 

I would know why 

You so wonderfully come. 

Lithe and straight and true ! 

Swift bearer of some message 

From the sun ! 

Speak ! Unloose your tongue. 

That I and all the world may know 

Why and whence you come, 

Whither you shall go. 



47 



MY BLISS 

Who sing of kisses and of loves, 
And passion whence they spring, 

Have never known my love which proves 
Their own a lesser thing. 

When my small girl and I must part, 

Though brief her clasping be. 
There is no passion-flowered heart 

That blooms like hers for me. 

In my son's arms, while resting still 

Against his heart, my bliss 
Exceeds your own ... I could not thrill 

So to a lover's kiss. 



48 



HER PLAID 

On a peg against the wall 

Hangs her little Scotch-plaid frock, 

With its white about the throat and sleeves. 

She hung it there before she went to sleep. 

Still sweet with the fragrance 

And warmth of her slim body, 

How it holds her shape, 

And takes the contour of her form ! 

Of late she's grown quite tall. 

I see the coming woman 

In her gown upon the wall. 



49 



TO MY SON 

Your fair young body- 
Like a willow wand bends 
And sways with all the springing grace 
Of youth, long and lithe in limb, 
Seeking like the willow reed the sun. 
If you would be a sturdy willow tree, 
Set your roots deep in earth, 
And let me be 
The water where you bend. 
For I have seen a wan willow 
Lean against a brook 
And take its joy in dreaming. 
Seen the joy within its look 
As it found its image in the brook. 
And though the willow subtly drew 
Its strength up from the brook, 
A time came when it gave back 
What it took, 

And the willow shook out all its golden leaves 
And tossed them scattered on the brook. 



50 



SUNBURN 

With loins wrapped, 

Your black body 

On its back 

Upon the dunes, 

And the magic ring 

Your out-stretched hands 

Draw around you 

On the sands, 

Make of you 

A black bambino 

On a yellow plaque. 



51 



TO A SON GOING TO WAR 

How may I bear this pain ? 

Must I see you come wounded home, 

With all your glowing beauty gone? 

Must that proud spirit 

Wear an alien form? 

How may I bear this pain, 

I, who have known my heart 

To ache and bleed, 

And felt my soul quiver 

In the very pride of its pain, 

That you might come 

A conquering god to earth? 

Must I, who gave my beauty 

For your birth, 

Now see that beauty slain? 

What man has right to ask 

For this — again? 



52 



SEEK WITHIN 

Child, when in trouble 

Or in pain, 

Lock fast your gate 

And seek the cause within. 

Thus shall you seize 

And capture it. 

Lock fast your gate, 

Lest the cur escape 

To sleep, or whine 

At another's door. 



53 



TO MY SONS 

The consecrated passion 
Of my youth, 

My will and all my strength 
I gave to you to use. 
My task is ended 
When you have learned 
There is no greater force 
Than this — my love for you. 
I give you all to life ; 
Life has a greater claim than I. 
You have a right 
To your experience, 
To live, to suffer, and to learn. 
My task to stand aside. 
If you have learned 
To be the god of your own life, 
And see both heaven and hell. 
As here and made by you. 
And know the world 
Is but the larger self. 
One heart, one life, one goal, 
And all humanity 
The living soul of God, 
My work is done. 
54 



MY CHILD IS DEAD 

My child is dead. 

Yet, though God has punished, 

I have not sinned. 

Nor wronged a human soul 

In thought or deed. 
My child is dead. 

Yes, and they will bury him. 

Unknowing they will take my life 

And lay it there with him. 
My child is dead. 

Oh show me where the justice, 

Where the wrong in me! 

I have failed, 

I am blind, 

I cannot see. 
My child is dead. 



55 



WAR 

The hours creep by to-day, 

A maimed and crippled throng, 

All that are left to speak 

Of the winged nights that were, 

And dawns that marched 

In stately column, 

With love triumphant. 

And with music. 

Now is their tread 

The tramp of stumbling feet. 

Their song a mumbled prayer. 

These mourning hours, soulless and pale. 

Struggling to build each day, 

Cry out against the wrong. 



56 



IT IS NOT TRUE 

They came to tell me in the night 

That you are dead. 

It is not true ! — 
For flowers grown by you 
Still bloom and toss the head. 

It is not true 

That you are dead ! 
The birds you loved now wing 
Their many-coloured notes 
To a coming sun, 
Which pours a golden anthem 
Out along the spring. 
How may this be 

If you are dead? 

It is not true ! 
You have out-flown the prison cell 
We have known you in, 
That you might fling 
The spirit of your beauty 
Out across the world. 

It is not true 

That you are dead ! 
57 



THIS MOTHER-LOVE 

This mother-love is deeper than you know. 

Its roots spring from childhood 

When I dreamed 

Of what a mother's love might be. 

It reached the dawn in maidenhood, 

And in marriage faced the sun. 

And as its flowers blossomed 

One by one, its roots went deeper, 

And when it learned to weep 

And still to keep its sweetness, 

I thought the dream complete. 

And now comes this storm 

To sweep me, 

That I may deeper go to seek 

And find the truth beyond my dream. 



58 



SON'S STRENGTH 

To my sons my strength has been a tower 

At whose feet the lashing sea of life has broken. 

They have seen its beacon 

Glowing through my night, 

And known it there to light their own. 

Its beam has shown to them the real and the 

unreal, 
And they have seen the empty fluttering things 

of life 
Fall with burnt wings and drift away. 

Now do I see each has builded him a tower, 

A tower greater than my own, 

A tower whose strength a world shall know. 

Each son bears now his lamp whose glow 

Shall carry far to light new worlds, 

To search new truths, 

A lamp whose gleam and glow 

Shall dim my own. 

To them my lamp burns low. 

Now shall it go where all burnt candles go; 

The star my heart now follows 

Is the truth they bear. 

Their strength my own. 

59 



SON'S LOVE 

One time my son's eyes wore a look 

That told me his world slept 

With love between his gaze and mine. 

Now though I see his love for me still there, 

Between us lies a newer world I may not 

enter — 
One he has made with her. 



60 



THE SWAN 

I WAS, 

I am, 

I shall be. 

Breasting the sea, 

I draw with me 

These three — 

I was, 

I am, 

I shall be. 



6i 



THE SHADOW 

Who watch their lengthening shadow on the 
ground 
Have turned their faces from the sun. 



62 



THE TREE 

You have given all your branches to the winds 

For harp. 

With rooted arms you have held the earth, 

And clasped the sunlight 

With your leafy hands. 

You have watched rain drip 

From your green fingertips. 

With up-flung head, 

With laughter and with song, 

You have challenged 

All the skies. 

You have given birth 

To singing shadows. 

I have given all my body to a man 

For joy. 

My arms have nested babies, 

My hand has held my welling breast 

To curling infant lips. 

Looking down on laughing children 

I have watched 

For a while 

63 



THE TREE 

Their shadows lengthen, 

Then faced again the sun, 

Learning from you 

To smile and be at peace. 

And never tire 

While shadows form and flow . . 

You have gone deeper into things 

Than I, 

You have gone higher. 



64 



THE FUTURE 

Along the ages 

Men have cried 

Their gods, 

While women followed 

With their worship 

And their praise. 

Now in recent days 

One comes and says 

"I am His Son." 

Men cry again: 

He is the One. 

But a woman cries : 

"He is my son," 

And the miracle is done. 

Yet woman knows 
Her work undone. 
Till man shall claim 
The god as son. 



65 



Part III 
THE WOMAN 



67 



WHY? 

Why have I 

This sturdy strength 

Born of the North, 

These eyes of steel — 

Why these things, 

With this sun-warmed 

Passion of the South, 

This sun-wooed 

Quivering mouth — 

Why, 

When I find 

No steel 

To challenge mine. 

No lips 

To cool my drouth? 



69 



CAT BRIARS 

The cat briar leaves 

Were caught 

By frost, 

And turned 

To olive gold 

And burnished bronze, 

The berries 

Were nile green. 

When they dream 

In happier days. 

The sun 

Gleams through 

Green shining leaves, 

Of jade 

And fruit 

Of dusted blue. 



70 



WHEN I GO 

When I go, 
Let none be sad. 
Let all sing, 
Sing and be glad. 
Shed no tears 
For wasted years, 
For all my hours 
Were crowned 
With flowers, 
For love 
Left a halo 
On my hair, for light, 
When none was there. 
Those who knew me 
Know that I shall live 
In all of life ; 
Others will not care. 

In the spring. 
When the birds sing, 
Friends will hear me there, 
In the call of the quail, 
71 



WHEN I GO 

With summer over all the earth, 

In the waterfall, 

And laughing brook. 

In the hay. 

In the corn shooks, 

In the vintage. 

And the harvest. 

In winter snow and frost, 

In all the life we know. 

Sometimes 

Whispering in the sighing rain; 

A tear 

In a mother's pain; 

Mist shadowing the tryst 

Of lovers, in the spring: 

In waves 

Kissing children's feet; 

As light in their eyes, 

And laughter on their hair. 

Moon-rise, 

Noonday skies. 

Dawns, 

Eventides ; 

In blue shadows 

Of hay cocks, 

On marshes, by the sea; 

Sand-dunes, and sea grass 

Silver-hued. 

72 



WHEN I GO 

In rocks, 

Carved by the laughter of the sea, 
Smooth or rough-hewn, 
Beaches strewn with kelp 
And spume; 
In pools, on the shore. 
Holding stars; 
And the far cry 
Of soaring gulls. 
Echoing along the cliffs, 
As they dip and wheel. 
In the curve of lips, 
After kissing. 

In a woman's breast, and hips; 
In the throb and tumult 
Of city streets; 

The pulse and rhythm and hiss 
Of engines: 
The touch of bow 
On violin. 
Sunlight, 

Flashing on a wing. 
The straining muscle 
Raised with the hammer 
For the blow. 
In the grace and curve 
Of road, and bridge; 
Happy faces: 
In all the glad, sad 
73 



WHEN I GO 

And glorious ways of life 

My friends shall find me, — 

But most surely 

Shall they find me 

In the immensity of the sea; 

There at all times 

Shall I be. 



74 



AFTER PAIN 

After all the pain 

I wake to-day 

To hear my heart 

Sing. 

It is like 

A mountain stream 

After rain 

In spring, 

So full it is 

Of fun 

And laughter. 



75 



THIS RAINBOW 

This rainbow 
Is a many-coloured bridge 
By which my dreams 
May go. 



76 



WHEN THE STORM BREAKS 

When the storm breaks 

And the wind wakes 

The ghosts of memory 

And dream, 

And sobbing notes come 

SHpping from the eaves, 

Then I will rise 

And go into the night 

To meet the tempest. 

And it shall tear and strip me. 

For I know the storm 

Will reap in me 

The dead things 

And give the living wings. 



n 



MY WILL 

My will is no giant thing; 
It is but a child. 
Yet its arm girdles a world, 
And in its hand are stars. 



78 



SEA LACE 

Each breaking wave 
Leaves great bands 
Of woven lace 
Upon the sands, 
Torn and scattered 
By the next wave's 
Ruthless hands. 



79 



THE SPIDER 

You wove a cobweb through the night 

Your dream of life and beauty 

Hanging by a thread. 

So do I seize my right 

To draw through my own night 

My dream 

To hang and gleam 

Above my head. 



80 



THE VEIL 

A MAGIC veil 

Broods over the earth. 

Spring is here, 

The time of loving, 

And of sowing. 

Of birth 

And growing. 



8i 



JANUARY THAW, CAPE COD 

Held fast in claws of frost, 

The earth Hes sere, 

When from the south a whisper comes 

Of spring elsewhere, 

Then silent the winter thaw 

Steals among all living things, 

Bringing to the land release. 

Singing, many-tongued. 

Again the glory of the autumn wakes 
In scarlet oak, in faun-hued bracken; 
Golden pines challenge sun and sky ; 
Paper leaves cling to beech trees; 
Grey boles of willow by the lake 
Hold golden branches tipped with flame; 
Salt marshes raise their tawny heads. 
Shaking them free of ice. 

Once more to stretch their arms in bluer seas. 
Where cat-briar weaves its tracery of green. 
Buds on bushes flush to rose, dreaming of spring. 
Scattered oak leaves cling and cluster, 
82 



JANUARY THAW, CAPE COD 

A mass of autumn's afterglow, 
Amber, flame and gold. 

Fields of ochre gleam in silence. 

In silence sing. 

Emerald crops of winter wheat toss 

A paean to the sun, a prayer, a benison. 

Flocking birds hovering await the spring, 

A robin calls. 

Beyond the dunes 

Trumpets and thunders 

The Sea. 



83 



HANDS 

From rock and cliff and crag, 
From the softest sands, 

From granite, peat and slag 
I sense emerging hands. 

Hands that from the night 

Reach out to find the day. 
Blind, unseeing might 
Making its way. 



84 



SLEEP 

Hymn no joy of sleep to me 

Who lay long years 

Awake beside a sleeping man. . ,' 

I was brave from day to day, 

Wearing my loneliness as a crown; 

But when night came 

I was again a beggar, 

Gnawing at the grief 

The sleeping stranger gave. 



85 



MY HEART FARES SOUTH 

My heart fares south to-night 

On wings of dream ... 

There, where the spring new-born 

Is sweet with scent of earth 

And fragrant flowers, 

My spirit wanders, 

And I dream . . . 

Soon the spring grown brave 

Will northward creep to me, 

With warm and tender hands 

Will feel her way along the hills, 

Trailing as she comes her mantle green 

Wrought with jasmine and cherry bloom. 

Her touch will wake the earth, 

A thousand springs will live again in her, 

A thousand springs in me will answer. 



86 



WHEN I UNCAPTAINED GO 

When I uncaptained go 
Out into the night 
Let none weep for me, 
And let no alien hands 
Touch me in my last sleep; 
Only the hands of him 
Who loved me. 
He will remember. 



87 



WHEN I AM DEAD 

I HOPE that none 

Will place dead flowers 

Above my head 

For grace, 

When I am dead, 

No garland that will fade, 

No stone 

Disfigured by a name; 

Let me wear instead 

The glory of the whole 

Wide universe 

As crown 

Above my head. 



88 



MEMORY 

While days were weaving into nights, 

Nights into days, 

I ran with laughter at your side — 

Eternity a dancing faun 

Along the wide way, 

Between the walls to-morrow 

Made with yesterday. 

Lying still. 
Warmed by the sun 
Upon the hill, 
You found an ancient skull 
And jesting flung it wide. 
Then called to me again 
To come and run 
At your side. 

You did not know 
I one time buried deep 
Below this hill 
An old dull pain — 
And so felt perhaps this 



MEMORY 

Passion-emptied skull 
Might once have throbbed 
Enthroned above the lips 
That mine had kissed. 



90 



LOVERS 

Sleeping I float upon a darkening sea, 
Deep-cargoed with unravished dream. 
Lovers, as beacon-swords of light, 
Reach out on every side 
Across the sea. 
Piercing the night 
To come to me. 

Far out across the distant wide 
Death's wings sweep up. 
They goad and lash the sea, 
They rend the night with flame, 
Oncoming to compass me. 

Sleeping I sink beneath this weight 

Of heavy dreaming. 

Bruised by the clash of flame, 

Stabbed with the gleam of swords. 

Along the sea, 

While over me 

In gold and scarlet thread, 

Cobwebbed above my head, 

Upbuilds a sheet of fire. 

91 



LOVERS 

Sleeping I sigh, 

Glad to go, 

Glad to die. 

Lying so, 

With all this fiery gold 

Fold on fold 

Above my head . . . 

I open wide my eyes 

To find my lover in my bed. 



92 



THE POET 

Who would place the laurel on his brow 

To crown him poet, have not found him. 

The voice that sings is not his own, 

It is the voice of all the years, 

The countless years. 

Since first the breath of man 

Answered to the urge within, and stirred 

Man himself the poet. 

Here one but speaks for him 

Even as the weavers weave for him. 

Even as he who wields the plough-share 

Ploughs for him. 

And he who would wear the laurel 

On his brow, 

Has not found the truth, 

Believes the songs are his, 

His alone the voice that cries 

Solitary in the wilderness. 



93 



THE WIND 

Who am I, 
Wanderer in your night, 
Who stir your leaves 
To murmur in the dark 
To stars? 

Who am I, 
Who lift and peer 
Beneath your greenery, 
Who listen 
As you gleam 
And glisten? 

Who am I 
But a mood 
To rouse you to reveal 
Another self — 
Wanderer in your night- 

Who am I ? . . . 

Who are you? 



94 



, MEMORIES 

Is it a storm I hear upon the hill 

Or thunder of old pain that rages 

And will not yield to time's assuages? 

Again that flare and flash ! . . . Nay, all is still. 

And yet — my cabin quivers . . . or I dream, 

Conscious of prowling memories that shake 

My strength. Hush . . . Hark . . . The 

wind is in the brake . . . 
Or footsteps come across the floor. ... I 

seem 
To hear a hand along the door. . . . Hush! 

. . . Hear 
The sob, the tear, the rain along the eaves. 
The rush of flying wind among the leaves. 
That human sigh within. Hush, hark again, for 

here 
The room throbs and murmurs, while near and 

far 
Old memories rise and flash asunder. . . . 
Grip and clash again in crash of thunder. . . 
Is there no force in heaven to out-star 
The starriest star, to out-stay these ghosts 
95 



MEMORIES 

Of thought and dream haunting these nights and 

days? 
Has heaven no self-appointed ways 
To curb the tumult of these wandering hosts ? 
Again! . . by the bed ... I hear a voice 

long dead . . . 
Nay! I'll not stay within. I'll fly and face 
The storm outside! ... I go, and find the 

grace 
Of a still night with stars above my head. 



96 



DESERTED 

How vast, how empty- 
Are the reaches 
Of this deserted bed. 
How lonely; 

It is the loneliness of space 
I cannot face. 
It teaches 

Elemental things to me, 
Who thought me wise. 



97 



RESTLESS 

Not be restless ? 

Ask the beach not to burn 

When the sea has left it; 

Ask the tide not to turn; 

Tell the day 

Not to leave us, 

And the night to stay ! 



98 



MY DEAR 

My name was so beautiful 

On your lips; 
Speak it sometimes 

In the night, 

And I shall hear; 

Whisper to the night 

"My dear." 



99 



THE GOLDEN GODS 

With all my being in my song 
There are no gods along the road to fear. 
Evil is here where dead men bury dead, 
Onward there is no evil way. Echo 
After echo of my song wings on ahead. 
The golden gods are calling, I must go. 



AUTUMN 



The pillars of my gate 

Are aflame 

With leaves. 

In spring, 

When they were green, 

They crept unseen 

Along the garden wall. 

Now the note they sing 

Is the swan-song 

Of the spring, 

The note, whose memory 

Shall cling 

Beyond the snows, 

And meet 

The blue bird's wing. 

II 

Among the vines 

Climbing 

On the cottage eaves, 

I see to-day 



AUTUMN 

Some dripping 

Crimson leaves. 

They speak to me 

Of hearts 

That bleed 

In anguish over seas. 

Ill 

The old witches 

In the corn shocks 

Shake their heads 

And look the other way; 

Sad, they wave 

Their withered hands 

From tattered rags. 

In the sun, 

In serried rows 

They come, they go, 

Bowed and old. 

Yet we know 

Beneath the dun they wear, 

Their arms are full of gold. 

IV 

The mill-pond 
Sleeps in peace. 
All summer long 
It was a gleaming lake 



AUTUMN 

Of greens and blues, 

Now it mirrors autumn tints, 

And bears upon its breast of blue 

An argosy of ships 

With sails of many hues. 



On the mountain pass 
The snow clings 
To autumn leaves; 
Snow, 

Gleaming gold, 
Showing green, 
Glowing crimson. 
Though Autumn fled 
Swift-footed 
From the frost, 
I know she passed 
With bleeding feet 
Along the snow. 
Where I tread 
The path is red. 



103 



YOUTH 

Youth, you and I have been long together. 

Now must you go your way, I mine. 
I did not think so late to have you with me, 
Yet you have stayed, 
Perhaps because you loved me. 

Now must you go your way, I mine. 
The beauty of the singing ways 
We have come, 
The winged days we shared. 
And the nights with their golden hours, 
Shall shine upon my path 
And make it seem less grey. 
But the days will be strange without you. 
The nights will be long. 

Now must you go your way, I mine. 



104 



AGE 

As I pass, 

Sometimes in amaze 

I stand before my glass 

And smile, gazing 

Incredulous at the ways 

Of youth smiling back at me. 

Then look beyond 

Where, grim, behind me, 

Poised, in silence waiting — 

Stands my shadow. 

Though I will not see, 

I know 

My shadow never smiles. 



105 



MIRAGE 

(Woman to Man) 

I AM lying 

With the vast earth 

At my back. 

It is upholding me. 

The lure of the earth 

Is in my eyes. 

Through me you strive and drive 

To reach the earth. 

In seeming triumph 

And with song, 

Ever you rise to the encounter. 

Though you have conquered me, 

Age after age. 

You have not won the earth. 

Though you come on, 

Renewing in each age 

The ancient struggle to win through, 

When your years are spent 

I am lying here 

io6 



MIRAGE 

With the vast earth 

At my back; 

I am here 

Between the earth and you. 



107 



Part IV 
OTHER WOMEN 



109 



FACES 

Have you pulled the veils away 

From lonely faces, 
And seen dark corridors 

Leading to silent places? 
Have you peered in eyes that weep, 

And seen the solitude 
They keep ? 

Have you read the lines 
On faces that are grey 

And guessed what would soften 
These away? 

Have you known the eyes 
That pass alight and glowing, 

Leaving a shadow 
In their going? 

Have you seen the joy 
Of dream fulfilled. 

The curving of the lip 
That love has caught 

And stilled? 

So are you blessed indeed — 
So have you learned the need 



FACES 

To pull the veils away, 
To find the day 
Behind the night, 
The night behind the day. 



WHAT IS THE SEA 

What is the sea ? 
It is the tears 
We women weep 
That love may be. 



"3 



THE LOOM 

Once, long ago, you placed within my hands, 

Beloved, 

The golden threads shorn from your baby 

head. 
Then was I again a mother, 
Feeling the joy, the pain, the hope 
Born of that other who gave you birth. 
And as I held these threads of gold 
My thoughts turned golden, 
Sweeping back across the years, 
Until your own sweet mother 
Lived for me, and her heart throbbed with 

mine 
To hear you voice such tender memories. 
And all this gold I wove into my dream. 

what gold I had for weaving ! 

Such gold was never seen upon the loom of 
time. 

1 took for design an old-world pattern, 
Such as maids and mothers weave 

114 



THE LOOM 

When their hearts sing to them, 
And they conceive. 

With my golden thoughts I used the golden 

threads 
From your baby head to weave into my dream. 
And when at the last you asked for them, 
I faced the task of seeking every thread you 

claimed. 
And the old-time pattern that I wove 
Is rent, and wet with tears, 
And all its threads are scattered to the winds. 
There are no days, no nights, 
Only the patient years. 



115 



TO A BUTTERFLY 

While your wings 

Flash the sunlight, 

And memory clings 

To the quivering touch of wind 

That lifted and pursued you 

Through the blue, 

You do as women do, 

You give to life 

Your wings. 

You give in ecstasy 

To unborn things. 



ii6 



HIS MOTHER 

Strange woman of lost dreams 

Haunting my days and my nights 

With your sweet presence, 

What may I do for you ? 

What rests undone that love can do? 

I have come to you in silent thought, 

To you I have brought my grief, 

And always in my pain 

Your arms sustain me. 

And when I weep you dry my tears. 

Yet in your silent presence 

The voice of my lost dream 

Taunts my loneliness. 

And tells me of my beloved. 

Seeking too, through you, 

That lost and cherished dream. 

O show me the way! 

Strange woman of lost dreams. 



117 



OTHER TEARS 

When I am radiant in my joy, 

And feel no happiness outstrips my own, 

When friends and life conspire 

To pour into my lap 

Their countless blessings, 

And all my heart's a song, 

I know that somewhere in the world 

A child is dying, 

A mother weeps. 

New life is struggling 

To the light. 



ii8 



OTHER JOY 

Though I am prostrate weeping mother's tears 
And feel that there can be no greater loss, 
No pain to equal mine, 
I know that somewhere else 
Are many hearts rejoicing, 
Wedding bells are pealing, 
A bride trips home, 
Somewhere a child is singing. 
Though I weep. 



119 



LIFE 

She dams black patches 

On his socks of grey, ' 
And white on black. 

She loves him in her way, 

I darn his socks of grey, 

With grey, 
His black with black. 

I too love him in my way. 

In his way 

He loves another — 
Her who will not darn his socks 

Black or grey. 



THE GREAT WRONG 

O WOMEN, weep not 

For the sons ye bore, 

But weep for the great wrong 

Done to love 

Through War. 



A FARMER'S WIFE 

I'm alone tonight. 

From the sea 

The moon has risen 

Mellow and full. 

As it climbs, the bay steals its colour; 

A tree shows against the moonlight, 

Where turkeys are roosting for the night. 

From the meadow, grazing in silence, 

A flock of sheep passes 

Like a mass of drifting cloud. 

I hear the call of a mallard, 

The honking of wild geese 

Flying south. 

In the house the fire glows, 

My candle sputters, 

A cricket sings upon the hearth. 

My man snores. 



TWO FACES 

I SAW two faces in a crowd, 
One wrapped in fur, over-fed, 
Gone soft from indolence, 
The other lean, hungry-eyed, 
Shivering with bared head. 
Neither smiled. . . . 
One wore jewels around her neck. 
She whose spirit had not died 
Bore slumbering jewels in her eyes. 



123 



THE MADONNA 

With babe on arm and weary load 
That she had carried through the rain, 

And clothes all muddied, hat awry, 
She waited for the evening train. 

Her eyes fell dully on the crowd; 

There was no light in them to see. 
No faith, no remnant gleam of hope : 

Her eyes spoke only tragedy. 

And yet all eyes that turned from hers 
Lay hostile on her child that wailed 

And broke the peace. ... A mother, I 
Knew that this mother's milk had failed. 

And took the child from her tired arm 
And gave it milk from my own breast. . 

I know no artist yet has ever caught 

The real Madonna with her child at rest. 



124 



MARY 

I WOULD not paint a young and fair Madonna, 

Mother of the infant child. 

I would paint the mother of the man, 

The woman who has felt pain. 

And suffered for her truth; 

Who has made a glory of her wrong 

Bearing it with courage and with pride; 

The one who can smile and keep her faith 

When Christ and child have died. 



125 



THE STRANGER 

She scorned me passing, 

As I washed the floor; 

Later I was but a human spring 

Which opened wide a door 

That she might enter in. 

When she met me in my diamonds 

And my pearls, she thought me fair. 

And then she smiled and knew me. 

She claimed me as her friend. 

Yet another day when I met her in the street 

And asked her for some bread 

That I might feed my starving child, 

She turned her eyes away. 

As I staggered past her, spent and weary 

Of my load, one freezing day, 

She would not see me pass, 

She was blind and would not see. 

When once I flaunted my way as a harlot, we 

met. 
And again she scorned me utterly. 
Nor did she know me coming of another race; 
I was a stranger to her always, 
126 



THE STRANGER 

With black or yellow face : 

Again when I laughed and danced 

In the joy of heedless youth 

She drove my joy away. 

And when a crippled child 

Cried out in its pain, her laughter 

Drowned its voice. I thought her wild 

Not to know this child was hers. 

Poor stranger! Can she not see 

She lives in every other woman 

As every other woman lives in her and me ? 



127 



THE PATHWAY 

A SINGLE narrow path 

Led me through the pines 

To the summit of a hill. 

And there I found a mansion 

Gaunt, ghostly and alone, 

A dim light only in a distant wing 

But when the seasons came again, 

I took once more the path 

And found an open way 

Trodden by many feet. 

The sun was everywhere; 

And when I reached the summit 

Where once the mansion stood 

There was now a solitary hut. 

The sunlight played 

With the shadows on the shingles; 

And through the open window 

A voice came soft and low. 

The voice of a woman singing. 



128 



THE HARLOT'S CUP 

A STRANGE woman 

From an Eastern land 

Took my gold, and 

Looking at my hand, 

Told me my love 

Had been untrue, 

Untrue to me. 

She was overbold, and said, 

"To drown some memory 

And ease his thirst. 

He stooped to drink 

From a harlot's cup." 

And when in wrath 

I rose to leave her, 

She flung a ribald laugh 

To follow after me. 

And said: "The harlot's curse 

Be on his head!" 



129 



SLOWLY A WOMAN CLIMBS 

Slowly a woman climbs the steps 

That lead her to her home. 

She drags her feet. 

The house looks dead, its windows 

Stare empty-eyed into the street, 

And from the way the woman walks 

I know her eyes give back 

The window's stare. 

And by the way she turns the handle 

Of the door and goes within, 

I know the woman's soul 

Is not in there. 



130 



GRIEVE IF YOU MUST 

Grieve if you must, 

Who do not feel 

The bursting bud and leaf. 

Grieve for your dead, 

For hopes that now are wingless, 

For dreams whose lips are sealed; 

Grieve if you must. 

Your bowed vision 

Sees but the woe 

Your folded wings entomb. 

Grieve if you must, 
But first lift your face to the sun; 
Then shall you run 
With perfumed hours, 
Through sunny fields 
Flushing into flower. 
Then shall you see 
The plumed song of birds 
Tinting the wings of spring. 
And the full choir 
Of resonant colour 
131 



GRIEVE IF YOU MUST 

Shall hymn you back to other springs, 
And on to new. 

Grieve if you must, 

But first lift up your head, 

To see the fallen limb. 

From this lost thing, 

Yielding itself from hour to hour 

To the spring. 

Watch the new life 

Leaping into flower. 

Grieve if you must, 
But first lift up your face 
To see the heavens weep. 
They weep that life may be, 
That brooks may sing. 
And rivers run full-hearted 
To the sea. 

Grieve if you must, 

But first lift up your eyes 

To where the turgid oak-bud 

Flings the dry leaf; 

See how the wind 

Takes the dead thing 

To laugh and dance with it. 

Singing as it goes. 

All winter long 

132 



GRIEVE IF YOU MUST 

The wind has made its song 
With these sere wings, 
Chanting from every tree 
A thousand strong. 
Above the snows 
Forest rang to forest, 
Chiming the spring 
They were to usher in. 

Grieve if you must : 
The sun will make 
A rainbow 
Of your tears. 



133 



HER LOVE 

Her love, she said, was deep. 

Yet would she weep 

To see him share 

His joy, 

Or find elsewhere. 



134 



HER JOY 

Her joy was for a day. 

Yet into that day 

Were woven tears, 

And the sorrow 

Of another woman's 

Years. 



135 



THE FACTORY WALL 

I WAS happy in the old place. 

In the yard was sun. 

Things there grew straight and true, 

Green, with flowers peeping through. 

A brook crept by. 

Sometimes boisterous with noise 

Of warning tears. But in the sun, 

Dreaming, I was happy. 

That was long ago. 

Now by the old place 

A factory is built. 

Where was once the sun 

Is now the blank face of a wall ; 

Blindly, my thought tries to grope 

Beyond it seeking hope, 

But finds the wall too high. 

The yard is full of soot and smoke, 

Where things grow crooked; 

Flowers choke and die. 

There is no green to look at 

Any time. 

136 



THE FACTORY WALL 

The brook, now, is a ditch of slime 
Which smells and cries its shame. 
Here, each year, a baby came; 
They came crooked, too; 
And died : every one. 
There are now six graves 
In the grim old yard 
Where once slim lilies grew. 

I am not happy now; 

I can no longer dream; 

Something in me craves 

The sun. And you, 

You others, 

On the other side the wall. 

Are you blinded by the sun ? 

Do your babies wither? 

Does your spirit fade? 

Because you've all the sunlight? 

Because you've lost the shade? 



137 



THE THIEF 

She came to you, she said, 

To bring you gifts. 

You welcomed her; 

Your eyes shone 

Upon her face. 

Her gifts, her youth, her grace. 

When you waked 
You found she had gone. 
You felt a loss, 
A sense of wrong. 
You did not know. 
Until you came again 
To sing to me. 
She had robbed you 
Of the gift of song. 



138 



ONE WOMAN 

She took no favour in the dark. 

Those who brought their gifts 

Brought them, one by one, by day. 

So, in taking, she stood 

With eyes that faced the sun. 

Eyes that none might question; 

She took alone from him 

Whose eyes could meet her own, 

Unfearful of the light. 

She took no gift 

Save for the giver's sake, 

And for the right of giving. 

She would not take, 

As others do. 

Those little gifts 

That shuffle, fearful of the light; 

She would not give to those 

Who hide their gifts 

Under the skirt of night. 



139 



YOUR FEET 

She ran to meet you. 

You were so swift, 

So fleet in coming, 

She thought your feet 

Were winged and sandalled; 

You were to her as sunlight 

Streaming through an opened door. 

She never dreamed 

That in your going 

You would leave this clay 

Upon her garment. 

This clay upon her floor. 



140 



SHE CAME 

Harlot hearted, 

With laughter 

And with song, 

With eyes that danced 

Unashamed 

Above her flaming breasts, 

The woman came. 

As. she passed, 

The man followed after. 

I wonder if he thought, 

I wonder if she said. 

Some word 

Of her lover 

Two weeks dead? . . . 



141 



A STRANGER 

She held a lordly favour 
Only a prince might name. 
She gave it to a stranger, 
One to me unknown. 

Now I know him, . . .' 

For he left the hill. 

And came, 

Under cover of the night. 

Tome. 



142 



THE MILL 

If the mill that grinds the corn should break, 
The stream would still run on and women bake 



143 



WHO LIGHTLY COME 

I STAND and watch them come and go, 
These women, who so lightly give 
And take according to their mood, 
Unheedful of the deeper depth in you. 
With the glow of love upon you, 
You are to them the beacon 
In a midnight sea. 
Like lost birds 
Drifting with the storm, 
They fling their empty lives 
Against the light they see, 
And fall with bruised wing. 
Never once touching 
This inner thing in you. 
These have no heed, no thought 
Of you and of the spirit's need, 
These dream not of the rocks 
Below the beacon's flame. 
Rocks laid in years 
Of patient toil together, 
And bound by strength of friendship 
The battering sea cannot dislodge. 
144 



WHO LIGHTLY COME 

They have no heed of these. 
They have no need to know 
Who come so lightly 
And so lightly go. 



145 



A SONG FOR WOMEN 

I WOULD be off and away, 

I would be on the dunes 

With the sea and the salt, 

With the smell of the kelp, 

On my lips, the taste of the spray. 

Watching the birds of the sea 

Dip to the blue, and soar. 

I would weep to the tune 

Of the ruthless wave 

Swept in from the deep 

Of the seamen's grave. 

And dance on the shore 

To the shade of myself. 

Dance in the light of the sun, 

Dance as never a one 

Has danced — 

Weep as never a one has wept. 

For I am the wind 
And I am the wave. 
I am the earth, the sea and the sun. 
For I am the womb and I am the grave, 
146 



A SONG FOR WOMEN 

I the cradle, I the tomb. 

I am the joy, the pain. 

I have died these things to find ; 

I have died to live again. 

I would be off and away, 

I would be on the dunes 

With the sea and the salt. 

With the smell of the kelp. 

On my lips, the taste of the spray. 



147 



